Bribing the Boatman
by AstroGirl
Summary: A FarscapeLexx crossover: Stark meets Prince & makes a deal with the devil. Spoilers for the 3rd season of both shows but not past Fractures. Gen. SZ. Lotsa angst. All comments and criticism very much welcome!


**Bribing the Boatman**

**by**** AstroGirl**

_Author's Note: This is a crossover between _Farscape_ and Lexx__. It contains spoilers for the third season of both shows, and will make absolutely no sense at all if you're not familiar with the third season of Farscape__. And Stark fans take note: all my previous fic has been for Blake's 7, where the standard tradition seems to be that the fonder you are of a character, the more you tend to a) highlight his dark side, and b) make him suffer. I do love the guy, really!_

"Where do you think you are going with that?" 

The voice was light, pleasant, cultured... and dangerous. It was also familiar, and it was that familiarity that made the hairs on the back of Stark's neck stand up. He knew the presence behind that voice, had felt it more than once, lurking in darkness on the Other Side, waiting. Not a good presence. Bad, very bad. He muttered the phrase to himself, half-aloud, trying to block out the voice with the sound of his own. "Very bad; very bad; not good; not good; very, very bad..." 

And yet against his will, he found that part of him thrilled to it, that reservoir of evil he kept buried deep inside himself, the dark legacy left to him by the dying, stirring in unwanted response. 

"I said, where do you think you are going with that?" The polite tones had become impatient, clipped, and all the more compelling. 

Stark looked down at the fragile essence he held in his arms. The Hynerian appeared unconscious, the only sign that he had not yet passed over completely into this realm, and thus utterly beyond Stark's reach. Still, this was as far as Stark had ever gone, the landscape almost frighteningly solid around him. Vast beach, vast ocean, vast sky. And standing calmly in the middle of it all: him. 

He might have been Banik, or Sebacean, but Stark was undeceived. This entity's appearance was as much a metaphor as the rest of this place, and Stykera had no need of metaphors to understand death. Still, white-haired and dark from the metaphorical sun, he stood there as real as Stark himself, gazing at him with a look of supercilious bemusement. 

"I'm taking him back," Stark said. "I made a promise. I promised Zhaan I'd help them, take care of them. I promised." 

"Did you, now?" The voice sounded interested. "Well, I've always believed in the value of keeping one's promises." 

Stark took an involuntary step backwards, frightened by the predatory look on the being's face. 

"I'm known as Prince, by the way. And you are... interesting." He smiled. 

"Stark. My name is Stark. And this is Rygel." 

"Yes, I know." 

Prince stepped forward, close, too close, and reached out a hand, tracing the smooth metal contours of Stark's mask without ever quite touching it. Stark could feel the energy he kept barely-controlled beneath it roiling in response, straining to escape and meet that touch. He swallowed convulsively, rooted to the spot. 

"Yes," said Prince. "Very interesting, indeed." He moved languidly to Stark's side, head bent to Stark's shoulder, and sniffed deeply, nose wrinkling as he caught the characteristic scent of Rygel. 

"I believe," he said, "that this one is mine." 

"No!" His arms tightened reflexively around the inert form, shielding him from Prince's malevolent gaze. He didn't even _like_ Rygel, but, here and now, it hardly mattered. Stark had the power to save him, and he _would_ save him, would not fail him the way he had failed Zhaan. "I'm taking him back! I'm going to save his life!" 

"All right." Prince shrugged. "If that's what you want, far be it from me to stop you. But why be in such a hurry to leave? I should think there'd be someone here you'd be very eager to see." 

It took a moment for the words and the smug look on Prince's face to sink in, but when they did... 

Eye widening, teeth bared in fury, Stark dropped Rygel to the sand, heedless of the danger of becoming separated from him, and launched himself at Prince, fists flying, a wordless scream rising in his throat. 

"No!" he wailed. "You're a liar! You _lie_! Zhaan isn't here, you don't have her! Zhaan is with the goddess! You _lie_!" 

Prince took a step back, apparently surprised at this onslaught, but the faint smile never left his face. Casually, he reached out and captured Stark's wildly flailing arms, holding both of Stark's wrists in one impossibly strong hand. 

"Tsk, tsk. This sort of behavior really is uncalled for." 

Stark forced himself to be still, striving for the calm that seemed so often to elude him these days. He could feel tears welling up in the corner of his eye. "You're lying," he whispered, insistent. 

Prince released his wrists, leaving him standing there, alone and shaking. "Not at all. I never claimed that she was resident in my realm. Your dear, departed botanical lover was certainly known to make some promisingly bad choices in her time, but, unfortunately, she managed to redeem them all quite thoroughly by the end." 

"I _knew_ you didn't have her!" He sneered gleefully, feeling as if he'd won some sort of victory over the being. 

Prince merely raised an eyebrow at him. "Nevertheless," he continued, "should you desire to speak with her, perhaps even to work out something more... permanent... I am sure something could be arranged. I am not entirely without influence." 

And Stark listened. 

** 

They found her in a garden, floating on an infinite, shining, blue ocean. 

"There she is," said Prince, pointing at a flash of blue in the midst of a colorful riot of flowers. And it was. It was her. 

He shoved Rygel into Prince's arms, barely noticing whether the entity caught him or let him fall to the ground. He was afraid to look away from her, lest she disappear. 

"Zhaan." 

"She will not remember you," cautioned Prince, already far behind him. 

"Zhaan!" 

She looked up from the bloom she had been tending, her eyes falling on him without recognition, a faint, puzzled smile on her face. "Yes?" she said politely. "Do I know you?" 

"I know you," he whispered. "Here." He reached up and touched her cheek with his hand as he reached out with his other, deeper, senses, his essence brushing against hers in gentle reminder of the Unity they had shared. 

Clarity and recognition lit her eyes, her beautiful, beautiful eyes. Confusion and delight shone in them, reflected in the achingly familiar beauty of her smile. "Stark," she said. "What are you doing here? You're not..." A sudden fearful sadness rippled across her features. "Stark, my love, you aren't dead, are you?" 

"Interesting," Prince muttered, somewhere behind him, scarcely heard. 

"No," he said. "I came with..." He sensed the presence of Prince at his back, and broke off, ashamed, knowing how Zhaan would feel to find him keeping such company as his. "I came to find you," he finished simply, and gathered her to him, burying his head in her shoulder. 

Nothing else mattered. He had found her. He had found her, and they were here together, and it would all be all right now. All the pain, all the confusion, it would all be gone, and he would be whole. Zhaan would make him whole; she was the only one who had ever known how. He would stay here. He would be loved. He would be sane. 

Lips brushed against his forehead, at the place where flesh met metal. "My dear, beautiful Stark. You cannot stay." 

_No! _He didn't shout the word aloud, but she heard it anyway, and held him with an even tighter tenderness. 

"Yes," she said, tilting his chin upward, looking him in the eye. "It's not your time yet, dear Stark. And I will be much happier here knowing you are safe and well." 

But he wasn't safe. He wasn't well. He wanted to tell her, to explain, but she smiled at him again and all the words got lost somewhere before he could even form them. 

In the distance, someone called her name. 

"I have to go." She disentangled herself from him gently, covering his hands with hers and loosening them where they clung to her clothing. 

"No! Zhaan, wait, I..." 

"I know." She touched his face, brushed a telepathic kiss across the surface of his mind. "I will see you again." She passed her hands across her head and under her chin, the ritual Delvian gesture she had taught him. Unthinkingly, automatically, he made it back. 

She backed away from him, chanting softly, a Delvian prayer: "_kala... kalash atir... kalash atir amaz..._" "I will... I will be watching... I will be watching over you..." 

Then she turned and vanished into the trees, radiating a contentment and peace he longed to share. 

Stark started after her, half reaching out, but hands seized him roughly from behind. 

"She's right, you know. You cannot stay." 

"Why not?" He could no longer see the place where she had been, realizing, in a vague, abstract sort of way, that that was because it was obscured by his tears. 

"Because you are not dead." Prince came around to face him, cutting him off from the direction Zhaan had gone. "And thus, you are not really here. Your body—the corporeal component of your body, at any rate—is still back on your ship, doubtless hunched over your friend the Hynerian in a truly touching display of selfless concern. And while dying is an option for you, I suppose, not only would it doubtless disappoint your charming blue girlfriend, but it does raise rather an interesting question." He threw his arm across Stark's shoulder, whispering confidentially in his ear. "Are you truly that certain about your own destination?" 

The tears were running down his cheek quite freely now. "Zhaan..." 

"There is an alternative," Prince's voice whispered, denches from his ear. "She cannot come with you, and you cannot remain here. _But_—" He removed his arm from Stark's shoulders and leaned backward against a tree, arms folded casually behind his head. "_But_, that does not mean that you cannot be together. I can put you in touch with her, whenever you like. I can be your link." The arm was back. "That would be nice for you, wouldn't it? Hmm?" 

He nodded, too fast, the tear-smeared world bouncing crazily up and down in his field of vision. 

"I thought so. Of course, there is one question you have forgotten to ask." 

Fear crept up on him, threatening to drown out his newly emerging hope. "What?" he asked, greatly fearing he already knew the answer. "What have I forgotten?" 

"You've forgotten to ask, what's in it for me?" 

Yes, of course. He'd almost forgotten who it was he had been talking to. "All right," he said quietly, feeling frighteningly lucid now. "What's in it for you?" 

"You have some most unusual abilities, Stark." 

"I am Stykera." He said it proudly. It was the one facet of his identity that he was still sure about any more, the one thing even the Aurora Chair, even the Plokavians, even Zhaan's death, had not been able to rip away from him. 

"Yes, precisely. You have the ability to help transit the dying across to... here." He waved his arm, indicating, Stark knew, not just this garden, but this entire watery paradise, the beach between the realms, and his own fiery domain. "As for where, specifically, they end up, well, that's not in your power to decide any more than it is in mine. However..." His grin grew feral, a disturbing contrast to the light tone of his words. "...this being an imperfect universe, mistakes do get made. People slip through the cracks. Sometimes all it takes is a nudge in the right direction." Prince's eyes bored into him. "Do you understand me?" 

"You want me to..." He couldn't say it. It was an appalling thought. A terrible, terrible thought. What would Zhaan think? 

"It's a small thing, isn't it? Just a tiny little bump in my direction, for those you help across. And Zhaan need never know." 

He shook his head, mutely, his mouth trying to form the word "no" even as something deep within him was screaming _yes_. 

"You can come here when it happens, and see her. And I can let her talk to you, whenever she likes. Of course, if that doesn't appeal to you, well, I'm sure I can take good care of her _without_ your help. See that she gets plenty of my... personal attention. As I said, I am not without influence here." Dark eyes gleamed in a face suddenly gone as expressionless as stone. 

The screaming in Stark's head was reaching an unbearable pitch, but all he could do was whimper. And nod. 

"Then we have a deal?" 

He struggled to control the screaming, struggled to create a silence in his head that would let him _think_. "What..." He licked his lips, willing them to obey him and say the words he wanted them to say. "What about Rygel?" 

Prince's eyes flickered to where Rygel lay, limp and forgotten, in the grass. 

"Oh, by all means, take him with you. I have no doubt that I'll be seeing him again eventually, anyway." 

"All right." He hadn't meant to say that, had he? "All right." _Zhaan__..._

"Then we have a deal!" 

** 

He came back to himself, hunched over Rygel, still trapped in the chamber on Talyn. Blinking back his tears, he checked the Hynerian, confirmed that he was breathing again, that the tiny heart was beating. At least he'd succeeded at something. 

He wondered whether Xhalax was going to come back to kill him. He wondered whether he wanted her to. He wondered just how big a mistake he had just made. 

But he'd saved Rygel. And he'd seen Zhaan. And did anything else matter? Did it? 

He smiled. He'd seen _Zhaan_. 

** 

"I am most disappointed in you, Stark." 

"You!" Him. _Here_. Here, ruining everything. Stark had finally done something good, something right, and Prince was here to ruin it. It wasn't _fair_. 

He felt Sierjna departing, passing beyond Prince's reach, and relaxed. He'd known she was a good person; it had poured out of her like rays of starlight. So much like Zhaan. How could he have rescued her from one monster, only to send her into the clutches of another? 

"Have you forgotten our deal?" 

He had not forgotten, exactly... Indeed, the thought had plagued him constantly, circling around and around in his brain until he could not find even the minimal peace he needed to function, to block out the random, jumbled voices in his mind. So he had locked it away in the secret place that even the Aurora Chair had not been able to discover, safely hidden even from himself. 

And Prince had just effortlessly sprung the lock. He shook his head, attempting denial, but Prince took it as an answer to his question. 

"Ah, well, I suppose I am prepared to forgive your lapse, just this once. But do bear in mind that should you pass up another such opportunity, I will be _most_ displeased. And I when I am displeased, Stark, those around me do tend to suffer." 

Images of Zhaan, writhing in torment, dying over and over again at Prince's hand... 

He shuddered, mumbling something even he did not understand. 

"I am glad to see that you appreciate the nature of the situation. I trust you will not fail me again." 

And then it was over, and the only person in his mind was Talyn; Talyn, who had scarcely known Zhaan, Talyn, who was too wrapped up in his own concerns to care. 

He felt terribly alone. 

** 

Of course he did it. He'd been left with no choice. 

Hadn't he? 

He tried his best to make up for it, to hold out some shred of hope. But everything he knew to do only made things worse, only increased the too-familiar grief on Aeryn's face, the unknowing accusation in her eyes, as if she saw him, truly, for the monster he'd become. 

When Zhaan began to speak to him again, he could not tell whether it was warmth or rebuke he heard in her voice. But he knew he needed to find out, needed to leave this place and search for what he'd earned, be it his reward, or his punishment. 

** 

And somewhere in the realm of Fire, Prince gloated over his newest acquisition... and waited. 


End file.
